I came across the Battle Royale movie in search of the OG, the forerunner of the genre that took the video industry by storm in 2017 – 2018, with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite leading the charge. I was interested in the idea of people being forced onto a remote location with weapons to fight to the death – the idea of a Battle Royale game. Original Battle Royale was text literature, so the author could not have depicted high octane gunfights and blistering action like the games – novels just aren’t made for portraying those things. So what did Koushun Takami portray? Is there any worth to the Battle Royale idea other than for action-packed entertainment?
To answer this, I sought the book online and nagged my overseas brother to buy it for me. But my patience ran thin, and I had to overcome my stigmatization of not just movies adapted from books, but movies in general – it had been some time since I watched a movie that I could call “art” rather than “entertainment.”
I am very glad I did.
(This review will not compare the movie to the book, manga, or movie sequel.)
- Characters
School kids kidnapped by the government, thrown onto an island and forced to kill each other until only one person is left standing. This means a lot of characters. Usually this makes side characters diluted and their deaths unmemorable. But not in Battle Royale. Out of the 42 students, I counted only 11 students that could be considered unmemorable, since they were mostly cannon fodder for the antagonists. The rest all had a story to tell, a character to show. Even the antagonists – save for one – felt like real, human characters instead of just cold, two-dimensional killing machines. Some refused to take part by adding themselves to the bodycount. Some attacked out of the panic and distress that was prevalent throughout the movie. Some plotted to escape the program entirely. Some wanted all to make peace and died because of it. The movie never forgets that school teens are involved in the Battle Royale. Teens with strong affections and crushes towards others that couldn’t go unheard before they die; teens with a tragic innocence and gravitation towards kindness, unknowing of how cruel the big picture is; teens with fragile minds that would break in many ways in the setting of Battle Royale.
This panic and chaos is shown right at the start, in the scene of the Battle Royale program being revealed to the students, who reacted expectedly. Running towards the soldiers to attempt to escape only to back away once warning gunfire was given, begging and asking why they are forced to participate, and horrified upon witnessing the first few deaths.
- Violence and drama
Detailed violence and drama are not things the movie shies away from. There is blood, highlighted on white uniforms. There are bodies with frozen expressions shown. There are screams and begs when a non-antagonist character is attacked or attacks. They rated the movie strictly 15+ in Japan for good reason. I felt a bit sick in the guts whenever I saw someone die.
“God, it’s so messed up…” This was meant as a compliment. I adore the fact that the movie isn’t afraid to showcase violence. Whenever a character is shot several dozen times, it’s not just for action or shock value. It shows how brutal the antagonists specifically and Battle Royale as a whole are. Every time a bullet is fired or a weapon is drawn, what follows is never what I would call “thrilling action”. I felt it was messed up because one the participants on either end is always a panicked teenager succumbing to the madness of the program. No heroism, no thrill, and rarely a definitive good guy or bad guy, because everyone is the same – teenagers struggling to survive and striving for different aspirations. The violence is what nailed the portrayal of the teenagers in Battle Royale.
I will give an example that most definitively demonstrates this. A girl in a group poisons in a meal meant for someone she suspects to have killed her friend. However, someone else in the group eats it first and dies very quickly, leaving the group to argue over who did it. One of the group points a gun at the rest. Another girl yells at a fellow member, dismissing her attempts to calm the group as being bossy and groundlessly accuses her, before going to grab another gun. The first person who grabbed a gun kills the second person, and the rest of the group kill each other in a bloody shootout, leaving the sole surviving girl, the person who really poisoned the meal, to be consumed by grief and commit suicide. Six students perished within five minutes, and a lot of blood was spilled, bodies shown as well. I rewinded the scene a few times. The scene was not important in building the plot, but I felt it was integral to showing how the program could drive these kids completely insane.
- Protagonists
The protagonists do not contribute to the theme of teenagers’ succumbing to madness. Instead, they forward the theme of rebellion against authority, most prominently showcased in the ending. Outside that, however, their relationships rarely extend beyond each other and their presences are mostly used to forward the other prominent themes of the movie. The main characters are like their classmates– teenagers with their own goals and desires to strive for. Perhaps it’s the beauty of the movie – it doesn’t need protagonists or villains.
- Criticisms
Remember when I said the antagonists except one were memorable? My complaints are mainly about that antagonist. He’s a contestant who volunteered to join just to kill for enjoyment – that’s all there is to his backstory. He kills a lot of people in the movie. He exists to do two things – forward the teenager madness narrative (shown when he attacks and kills begging or panicking victims) and challenge the protagonists – and that’s it. He even has a bulletproof vest and a nearly bottomless Uzi to serve said purposes. No character, no story, no goals, no justification for killing. I understand the need to shave off the number of living students, but it would have been much better if the movie stuck to mad teenagers kiling each other sporadically.
- Conclusion
If you can stand lots of graphic violence and sensitive subject matters, if you enjoy tragically relatable actions and characters, if you are sick of the movie genre being nothing more than entertaiment, then procuring Battle Royale should be on your list. The movie retains all core aspects of the book, perhaps even adding more depth to it.
Battle Royale can mean a lot of things. Struggling in society, authoritarian brutality, teenage madness and innocence… It’s only for you to decide.
Review by Firebird
Artwork from Pinterest
Red Brick Wall 